Senior/Principal Engineer Hardware (Space Systems)

At Northrop Grumman, our employees have incredible opportunities to work on revolutionary systems that impact people's lives around the world today, and for generations to come. Our pioneering and inventive spirit has enabled us to be at the forefront of many technological advancements in our nation's history - from the first flight across the Atlantic Ocean, to stealth bombers, to landing on the moon. We look for people who have bold new ideas, courage and a pioneering spirit to join forces to invent the future, and have fun along the way. Our culture thrives on intellectual curiosity, cognitive diversity and bringing your whole self to work — and we have an insatiable drive to do what others think is impossible. Our employees are not only part of history, they're making history.

Job Description

The Payload and Ground Systems organization within the Northrop Grumman Space Systems pushes the boundaries of innovation, redefines engineering capabilities, and drives advances in various sciences. Our team is chartered with providing the skills, innovative technologies to develop, design, produce and sustain optimized product lines across the sector while providing a decisive advantage to the warfighter. Come be a part of our mission!

We offer phenomenal learning opportunities, exposure to a wide variety of projects and customers, and a very friendly collaborative workplace. We are looking for self-motivated, proactive, and goal-oriented people to help us grow our services and become even better at what we do. Does this sound like you?

Our Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) provide benefits for the member, our leaders and the company. Our ERGs offer opportunities to be a friend, be active, be a volunteer, be a leader, to be recognized and to be yourself! Every ERG is inclusive of all employees!

Our diverse portfolio of programs means there are endless paths to cultivate your career. We are well-known for our inclusive environment, as well as our excellent work/life balance. We also offer exceptional benefits/healthcare, a 9/80 schedule, and a great 401K matching program.

We have an opening for a Principal Hardware Engineer or Senior Principal Hardware Lead Engineer to join our qualified, diverse team. We are seeking a team member who wants to solve interesting, complex problems to help protect our nation. We are a trusted mission payload and ground system provider with extensive experience providing end-to-end mission solutions from concept through operations and support. The team you will support is located at our Space Park campus in Redondo Beach, CA.

What you’ll get to do?

As a Sr Principal Hardware Engineer on this team, you will support a very fast-moving team to help design, model and develop the ground system for the Space Development Agency’s (SDA) low earth orbit constellation for SDA’s Tranche 1 constellation. The constellation is a mesh network of 126 optically-interconnected SVs that will provide a resilient, low-latency, high-volume data transport communications system that will be launched starting in September 2024. SDA’s vision is to deliver a minimum viable product on time, every two years to the warfighter by employing spiral development methods.

Tranche One Tracking Layer (T1TRK) is part of an ambitious space architecture to bring next-generation communications capabilities to the warfighter around the globe. This program builds upon existing Transport Layer capabilities to perform OPIR tracking missions for the DoD.  You will join an integrated, agile team to expand the Tranche One Ground System portfolio on an aggressive schedule. If you want to rapidly grow a broad spectrum of skills and experiences in space ground systems, come join us.

Core Responsibilities:

•  Analysis of hardware characteristics and comparison against design requirements.

•    Preparation and review of rack level and site drawings and plans.

•    Review of the content and details of technical products.

•  On call, 24/7 pager support during critical phases of testing, contingency operations, and off-site as required.

•    Some travel required to support site survey and installations as requested.

Basic Qualifications:

•    Recent experience and skills using MS Visio to design rack layouts and preparation and review of diagrams and technical drawings.

•    Required skill areas include familiarity with the analysis of hardware requirements and support/perform related analysis (heat, weight, power).

•    Candidate should be able to demonstrate an understanding of Networking concepts including Routers, Switches, and Firewalls.

•    Successful candidate will possess knowledge of systems and hardware engineering concepts, principles, and techniques.

•    Familiarity with drafting practices and DoD Drawing requirements.

•    Candidate should also be familiar with common rack mounted computing equipment (servers and workstations) and networking equipment and cable selection to support interconnection and powering of selected computing equipment.

•    Candidate should have experience conducting in person site surveys preparing for hardware installations.

•    Administration of Linux (RHEL/CENTOS) 5/6/7/8 servers and workstations in a production environment

•    Implementation of Security controls for Linux Servers and workstations

•    Extensive experience in the deployment of I&T lab environments

•    Proven ability to Task and Resource manage to meet program milestones.

•    Experience using Compliance and Remediation tools (i.e., Nessus, SCC SCAP scanner, STIG Viewer)

Preferred Qualifications:

•    Experience operating under and managing systems within NISPOM Chapter 8, DCID 6/3-ICD 503, RMF, STIG, JAFAN, or JSIG information system environments.

•    Redhat System Administration certification(s).

•    Understanding of Enterprise-level storage concepts to include all commonly-used RAID-levels.

•    Redhat Satellite Server (version 5 and version 6) configuration and usage experience.

•    Understanding of remediating security vulnerabilities; experience hardening Redhat systems in accordance with RMF and STIGs.

•    Identity Management (Single Sign-On) experience.

•    VMware and ESXi (6.x or higher) configuration and management experience.

•    Experience with host-based firewall implementations and configuration (Redhat “iptables”).

Salary Range: $95,000 USD - $142,400 USD

Salary Range 2: $117,700 USD - $176,500 USD

Employees may be eligible for a discretionary bonus in addition to base pay. Annual bonuses are designed to reward individual contributions as well as allow employees to share in company results. Employees in Vice President or Director positions may be eligible for Long Term Incentives. In addition, Northrop Grumman provides a variety of benefits including health insurance coverage, life and disability insurance, savings plan, Company paid holidays and paid time off (PTO) for vacation and/or personal business.

The health and safety of our employees and their families is a top priority. The company encourages employees to remain up-to-date on their COVID-19 vaccinations. U.S. Northrop Grumman employees may be required, in the future, to be vaccinated or have an approved disability/medical or religious accommodation, pursuant to future court decisions and/or government action on the currently stayed federal contractor vaccine mandate under Executive Order 14042 https://www.saferfederalworkforce.gov/contractors/.

Northrop Grumman is committed to hiring and retaining a diverse workforce. We are proud to be an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer, making decisions without regard to race, color, religion, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, national origin, age, veteran status, disability, or any other protected class. For our complete EEO/AA and Pay Transparency statement, please visit http://www.northropgrumman.com/EEO. U.S. Citizenship is required for most positions.